EMBARRASSING MOMENT
April 16, 1921
Chicago Tribune
Chicago, Illinois
Gentlemen: It happened only recently during the warm spell. I was in St. Louis, and by chance, met an old school friend who I had not seen since we were boys in Military School together. With him were the female members of his family, and a large part of their feminine acquaintances it would seem. After introductions and felicitations all around, it so happened another former cadet of the same Correctional Institution was passing in an auto when my friend hailed him and called my attention to the fact that a brother Shriner whom I ought to know was approaching. Imbued with the spirit of the Order, I stepped to the curb at the point of highest visibility to my pedestrian party, and started a most elaborate and obsequious salaam—when suddenly and without warning, the posterior warp and woof of my trousers gave way into a jagged 14-inch Maltese Cross with the suddenness of the dam at the Johnstown Flood.
If the remuneration for submitting this is in proportion to the
humiliation and mental pain and anguish suffered, the Tribune
Corporation will pass its next quarterly dividend.
Respectfully,